World War I – 1914-1919
A roll of honour for WWI was made of jarrah with inlaid scroll work around the border. It was unveiled in the Agricultural Hall on 31 March 1917 by Mrs Emma Cockman, who had 4 sons who enlisted for service.
The names of those fallen in WWI are inscribed on the Wanneroo War Memorial:
Percy John Ainger No.5659 Pte 16th Battalion
Herbert George Bennet No. 568 Pte 28th Battalion
Albert Bennet No. 119 Pte 44th Battalion
James Dunn Bennet No. 2018 Pte 6th Battalion
William Edgar Cockman No. 2616 51st Battalion
Charles S Knight No. 2710 Pte 28th Battalion
Richard Francis Smales No. 2802 L/Cpl 51st Battalion
Richard Waltham No. 547 Cpl 8th Battalion
Ernest John (Dudley) White No.3526 Pte 11th Battalion
In 1921 a war memorial stone obelisk was erected in Wanneroo in honour of the 9 local men who lost their lives in WWI. It was originally outside the Post Office and was relocated twice before resting in its current location.
World War II – 1939-1945
During WWII the 10th Light Horse regiment was located in the Wanneroo district. The house of Eli Edward (Jack) Ashby was used as the site for an army camp and the homestead ‘Spring Hill’ became the canteen for soldiers in the nearby medical camp. The second camp was located on Wanneroo Rd and was code-named Brad.
An aircraft spotting station was located at the corner of Dundebar and Wanneroo roads opposite the post office. Residents remembered the station as a little wrought iron shed, like a garden shed. Someone was in attendance every day from 1942 until 1945. The spotters were volunteers, mostly local young women whose job it was to look for planes flying over the area, and using the telephone switchboard in the shed, they would ring the Pearce Air Base with information about the plane types and their direction. The spotters also ran air raid drills by sounding an air raid siren.
On 11 January 1940 a Hawker Demon biplane from the Royal Australian Air Force station, Pearce, crashed and sank in about 60 feet of water half a mile from the shore near the Yanchep Lagoon.
The RAAF used the Yanchep Inn and the Gloucester Lodge as the services’ medical convalescent units. Army bunkers and generator bunkers were erected in the Yanchep National Park and a War Memorial was erected in the park in 1979. A small timber building used by the RAAF during WWII as the Nurses’ Quarters was donated to the community. It was relocated to its present location and became the premises for the Yanchep Golf Club which was established in 1965 by cray fisherman Rob Hoy.
A new inscription was added to the War Memorial granite obelisk to honour the fallen of WWII
Albert Barnett Facey Jnr No. WX4915 Pte 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion
Lacey Gordon Gibbs No. WX16407 Pte 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion
William Herbert Gibbs No. WX8958 Pte 2/4th Machine Gun Battalion
